“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 1

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Making a Killing

The Connection Between Psychiatric Drugs& Mass Murder

There is a connection between psychotropic drugs and mass murder that is not coincidental. Theses drugs disrupt brain functioning, impair emotional awareness, dull the conscience and disrupt conscious control of violent tendencies. These psychiatric medications can cause a neurological condition called “akathesia,” which means that persons who take them can’t sit still and feel like they are jumping out of their skin. They behave in an agitated manner which they cannot control and experience unbearable rage, delusions, and disassociation.

There is enough evidence that antidepressants cause increased risk of suicide and violence for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and its Canadian counterpart to require that drug companies include a “black box” warning to that effect on their packages.

Eric Harris, one of the gunmen in the Columbine school shooting, was taking Luvox and Dylan Klebold, his partner, had taken Zoloft and Paxil

James Holmes, the Colorado batman shooter, had taken 100 milligrams of Vicodin immediately before he shot up the movie theater

Christopher Pittman was on antidepressants when he killed his grandparents

Doug Williams, who killed five and wounded nine of his fellow Lockheed Martin employees, was on Zoloft and Celexa

Michael McDermott was on three antidepressants when he fired off 37 rounds and killed seven of his fellow employees in the Massachusetts Wakefield massacre

Kip Kinkel was on Prozac when he killed his parents and then killed 2 children and wounded 25 at a nearby school

Psychiatric Drug Side Effects

The psychiatric drugs have significant “side effects” including:

apathy

abnormal dreams

acute respiratory distress

akathesia,

agitation,

aggression,

agoraphobia,

paranoia,

measurable brain damage,

cerebral atrophy,

disinhibition,

hostility,

homicidal and suicidal ideation,

convulsions,

assorted blood pressure and heart problems,

breast enlargement in young boys,

diabetes,

Parkinson's symptoms,

tardive dyskinesia,

tremors,

convulsions,

psychosis,

cerebral

vascular accident,

inability to express emotion,

lethargy,

increased chronicity of emotional problems,

early dementia andearly death

Mark A. Taylor Citizen Whistleblower

Mark Allen Taylor is a citizen whistleblower and human rights advocate. Mark Allen Taylor bravely stepped forward and testified publicly about his experience as a victim/survivor of the mass shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School. Mark A. Taylor was an outspoken critic of the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by teenagers. Mark Allen Taylor testified along with Dr. Ann Blake-Tracy, Executive Director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness, to a Food and Drug Administration hearing on the relationship between psychiatric drugs (in particular Luvox) and mass violence. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two shooters, were both on anti-depressant drugs at the time of the 1999 school shooting. These prescription medications were used "off-label" and had not been approved for that use by the Food and Drug Administration. There were indications that Eric Harris was experiencing adverse effects from the medications he was given even before the Columbine shooting occurred. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered a total of 12 students and one teacher and injured 21 additional people, with three others being injured while attempting to escape the school. In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and bombs rigged in cars. Police responded and then Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold committed suicide. Mark Allen Taylor published a book about his experience. The pharmaceutical industry manipulated the legal system and the press to keep secret the direct relationship between the “extra-label” psychiatric drug, Luvox and the behavior of Eric Harris the day of the mass violence at Columbine High School. Mark Allen Taylor had worked with Dr. Ann Blake-Tracy to express his views on radio, on video tape and in public presentations. http://www.drugawareness.org/

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy PhD - Drug Awareness

What happened to Mark A. Taylor?

What actually happened to Mark Taylor the miracle boy who survived being shot at the Columbine High School? Mark showed great strength of character to go through rehabilitation after his shooting and also great psychological resilience of spirit. Mark Taylor's recovery required multiple surgeries, an initial hospital stay of two months and the anguish of having tubes thrust down his throat and tubes placed in his side. ”The horror of what I went through in the hospital, I can’t even put in words,” said Taylor, who was shot by Eric Harris on April 20, 1999 during the Columbine High School shooting.

Mark Taylor like many other victims of trauma had to fight back against the odds; it was a long journey of physical rehabilitation as well as spiritual journey that took him from shock to understanding. Mark chose to write a book about his experiences which highlighted the importance of his Christian faith and his own pathway to forgiveness and understanding. He has forgiven shooters Harris and Dylan Klebold and their families. He has talked to gang members and Vietnam veterans about forgiveness.

Columbine Mark A. Taylor

Mark A. Taylor Fights for his rights

Mark was a citizen whistleblower against the dangers of antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs. During the rigorous process of discovery prior to the legal battle with Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Mark Taylor was able to expose many dangerous truths about the pharmaceutical industry’s fraud against the American public. The pharmaceutical industry does not take kindly to this kind of exposure of their deeper secrets. Thus Mark Taylor and his mother, Donna Mae Taylor, were targeted with anonymous violence, surveillance, harassment, petty crimes, entrapment schemes and even a mysterious methane gas leak that forced Mark’s brother to seek medical care out of the state. During all this Mark was courageous and continuing to move forward with his life and sell his book. Many of the other Columbine victims/survivors settled with the pharmaceutical company after threats that the lawsuit would ruin them financially. Mark and his mother experience continuing retaliation, threats of counter law suits, intimidation, surveillance and other forms of bullying behavior against Mark Taylor and his family. This is presumed to be intended to cause him to drop his law suit and to cease his public advocacy against antidepressants, SSRI medications and other psychotropic drugs. In 2009 Mark Taylor was continuing to heal from his trauma and trying to continue to move forward with his life and sell his book, he was involved in television and radio show appearances and many book signings. Mark was told that he is accused of writing a letter that he would bomb a bookstore in Colorado Springs. He protests he is innocent of those accusations and that they are not true. He and his mother have no idea who started this hostile gossip. Those with negative intent can often use the powerful mental health law to their advantage. Those wishing to silence Mark’s advocacy against the pharmaceutical drugs were suspected of being behind this fabricated allegation. Mark denies the truth of these accusations, but Mark is still grabbed by the police and put in 72 hours mental health hold in the hospital. So all it took was someone stating something and his freedom was lost, his right to face his accuser denied and his right to due process ignored. In addition he is denied his liberty and even his right to decide his own fate and medical care. He is held in incognito detention and his family is not allowed to see him for some time. During this time, those in charge of his captivity clearly get power over him – physically, emotionally, psychologically and legally. Mark is drugged against his consent, and held for a month and then let go with outpatient care but forced to take medications. Mark is then under the medical community’s monitoring and control. So suddenly Mark Taylor who has never had any due process, is not accused of any crime is now being forcibly drugged against his consent with lifelong consequences for him. Doctors are very much influenced by what the pharmaceutical companies advertising states about these psychiatric medications. When facing a charge of mental illness, the patient is rarely believed and accusations against him readily believed. Then after that incident Mark Taylor’s mother reports that he was just walking in his neighborhood and he is suddenly confronted with police who drag him off on false pretenses that he was acting weird and they incarcerate him in a mental facility. He was admitted to the hospital. While there the mental health professionals decide to forcibly drug him with psychotropic medications without his informed consent and again refuse to let him for some time to communicate with his family. He finally was released as an outpatient but only after addicting him to psychotropic medications. Many who saw Mark prior to these hospitalizations remarked that Mark Taylor had resilience and had come a long way in his recovery. But with the use of powerful mind altering drugs, Mark slips into a state of incapacity. The very effects of the drugs make it less possible for Mark to express himself and to assert his rights as a human person. These drugs themselves cause a disruption in the ability to think. After his hospitalization the effects of the drugging on him are clearly evident. (See the video above) In all these decisions Mark himself is not respected for what his own wishes were in regards to psychiatric medications - his views were very well known to all who heard him speak publicly and who read his book, “I Asked, God Answered … a Columbine miracle.” The medical professionals have not discussed or really explained the treatment to the family and continue to down play the very visible side effects of the drugs. Decisions about Mark's care were made by the doctors with no consultation with the family or even Mark himself. Donna Taylor continues to be concerned if Mark stays on these medications for a very long time there’s a increased risk of developing an irreversible behavioral and physical conditions. Continued treatment with psychiatric drugs will cause significant effects and many do not realize how these powerful mind altering drugs affect patients.

These psychiatric drugs block receptors in the brain and cause a decrease the flow of dopamine and serotonin - both neurotransmitters. This is why patients develop symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease and get tired easily and move more slowly. Patients often show problems with speaking – getting the words out and also being able to think clearly and gather their thoughts. These are the effects of the drugs themselves:

8. Not being able to sit still, pacing These are not symptoms of the underlying disease - these are caused by the drugs themselves.

Thus the very effects of the drugs make it less possible for any patient to express himself and to assert his rights as a human person. These drugs themselves cause a disruption in the ability to think. High enough doses over a long period of time of many of these medications makes people quite depressed. Thus a cyclic drugging can get started with ever increasing symptoms of the drugs themselves which causes the treatment team to keep adding drug upon drug to manage the actual effects of the medications.

Mark's mother objects to the continued administration of even stronger drugs to Mark, drugs with more adverse effects that dull his mind, prevent his speech and slow his movements. She believes that he should be carefully weaned off these drugs and allowed to consider other options for mental health treatment. Mark Taylor and his mother were staying with friends when one day Mark starts to experience an adverse effect of the very medication he was forced to take. Mark was observed by a friend to have a short blacking out period and to be feeling these serotonin related side effects which were directly caused by the medication and his prescribed decreased dosage (caused by decreased levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin). This friend called an ambulance and Mark was admitted to the hospital – suffering from SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome – a side effect of his psychiatric medication. Tapering off very, very, very slowly has proven the safest and most effective method of withdrawal of psychiatric medications. When discontinuing or withdrawing from a psychiatric medication that affects the brains serotonin level, a dangerous situation can occur a condition called the "SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome." When serotonergic activity dramatically decreases because the neurons aren't able to communicate properly with each other anymore. As a result of this decreased serotonergic activity, side-effects occur. Sometimes these side-effects are reported by the patient as feeling like electric shocks, zaps or shivers in the head (brain) or sometimes like “pins and needles” in the skin or like a light flickering in his/her head. These symptoms are sometimes so severe that the patient feels confused or like on the verge of blacking out or losing consciousness. These sensory disturbances may make the patient feel very confused and may involve short periods of short-term memory loss or absences. These absences are actually petit mal seizures which may be invisible to the observer and not recognized as epileptic activity. This is an effect of the withdrawal of the prescribed drug itself - not a symptom of mental illness. It is caused by the drug. Then the terrible tragedy of the downward spiral of more and more medication, more dangerous drugs until finally Mark was at one point according to his mother, in a coma. While all this psychiatric drugging was going on, his family was refused regular access to him and he was totally in the power of the doctors who were able to charge $700/day for his basic care and even more for treatment and diagnostics. This meant that the hospital bill was surely over a hundred thousand dollars and probably much higher. Currently Donna Taylor is fighting for her son’s human right to not be drugged against his consent for a condition he may not even have. Mark regularly tells her that he does not want to take these medications but the doctors ignore his pleas for them to take him off or at least reduce the dosage. Donna Taylor is struggling against an entrenched mental health system where all the power lies with the hospital and the doctors and where there is little effort to respect the human rights of the patient or to honor the right of Donna Taylor as the legal guardian.

Luvox & Police Officer Lutes

What happened on an evening in April 2002 surprised everyone in the Seaside Heights community, New Jersey Police Officer Edward Lutes went on a shooting spree, killing several people before shooting himself fatally.

What made a good officer snap?

As with all human tragedies, the truth was a complicated matter, with both personal tragedy and also deeper societal problems involved. When the story finally unfolded, it became evident that Officer Lutes had suffered many losses.In 1991 Officer Lutes’ mother died of cancer at age 54. In March 1999, one of Officer Lutes' neighbors, Dominick Galliano was charged with sexually assaulting the officer's young daughter. Dominick Galliano was acquitted of the assault charges in January 2001. Lutes had been recently bereaved by his fiancee's death a year before in a car accident. Those who knew Officer Lutes said that this series of personal events had left Officer Lutes mildly depressed and also without the emotional support of his beloved fiancee. So the officer, sought professional help and was prescribed the drug Luvox for depression. Luvox(Fluvoxamine) had a FDA black box warning label stating that it can cause violent behavior and suicide, yet it was given to this officer for his depression

Officer Edward Lutes' case was joined with the case of Mark Taylor, the Columbine shooting victim in a case against Solvay Pharmaceuticals. Solvay Pharmaceuticals continued to market the drug Luvox even after the FDA demanded that a black box warning label be placed on their product. Luvox was sold by Solvay to another pharmaceutical company and re-named and still sold even after several mass shooting tragedies. These psychiatric medications with this black box warning label about violent behavior, continue to be sold to countless patients - some of whom are police officers.

Mass Shootings

SSRIs and Violence

Luvox affects the neurotransmitter Serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that affects the brain and plays a role in aggression, memory, learning, pain, sleep, appetite, anxiety, depression, migraine, and vomiting. Several different classes of psychiatric drugs like anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety drugs, anti- migraine drugs and psychedelic drugs affect the level of this neurotransmitter inside the neuro-synapses of the brain. Some drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants (TCA’s) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) inhibit the reuptake of serotonin, making it stay in the synapse longer. SSRI's and TCA antidepressants not only fail to modify cortisol, but actually stimulate/increase cortisol release. This is why these drugs can create a drug induced abnormally elated mental state, typically characterized by feelings of euphoria, racing thoughts and talkativeness. This can then progress further to a neurologically driven agitation. This agitation can range from mild leg tapping, to severe panic or even an extreme manic state. This does tragically lead directly to suicidal, aggressive and/or homicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Bill Forsyth of Maui, Hawaii, had taken fluxetine for only 12 days when he committed one of the first murder/suicides attributed to any SSRI. Joseph Wesbecker who had only been on the drug fluoxetine for 4 weeks killed eight others and himself in a Louisville, KY. at printing plant where he worked. But the lesson from the Columbine School shootings was not learned, because in the U.S.A today these dangerous drugs are still being prescribed for depression – with fatal consequences. In 2005, Jeff Weise, aged 17, was taking Prozac and when his dosage was increased after his Prozac induced nightmares; he then went out and did a mass murder at the Minnesota Red Lake School.

News reports stated that Stephen Kazmierczak, who shot and killed five Northern Illinois University students at the Dekalb campus on February 14, 2008 had recently stopped taking medication and "had become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks." There was no apparent motive or any relationship with any of his victims who were mowed down as he fired more than 50 shots in a matter of seconds from a lecture hall stage. This was not unusual as often there is no motive with these drug-related killings. The profound influence of drugs on the person’s brain levels of neurotransmitters are affected so much that any sudden increase or decrease in the dosage can result in insane homicidal behavior. Steven Kazmierczak was 27 when he purchased the shotgun and two of the hand guns prior to the attack. Kazmierczak had no criminal record but had been a patient for a year at Thresholds-Mary Hill House, a psychiatric treatment center for teens. Under Illinois state law he would not have been able to purchase a weapon legally if there had been a record of arrests or mental problems.

Current gun control policy is geared to accept that patients “under the care of a physician” are approved to purchase a deadly weapon. These pills do not “cure” mental disease – they alter brain function – often with devastating effects. Remember that the supervising clinical doctor is perhaps only seeing the patient for 15 minutes every 3 months. Some supervising physicians are not even seeing their patients that frequently, as they are allowing nurses or PA’s with prescription authority to actually do the face to face with the patient, in these instances the MD may not see the patient hardly at all. Many states permit mental patients on these medications to purchase guns – not considering at all the fact that the FDA warning inserted in every antidepressant prescription warns of possible violent behavior and suicide. Those empowered to make public policy decisions on gun control legislation should reevaluate the assumption of low risk of gun violence from patients taking psychotropic drugs.

When will the public policy on gun control actually reflect the research findings that lead to the FDA warning label on these dangerous mind altering drugs - when will we finally realize that taking a pill doesn't make someone "normal" or safe to handle a gun. Right now the legislation is worded in such a way as to prevent someone who uses non-drug therapy (such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or psychotherapy) from purchasing a weapon but place a weapon in the hands of someone else taking a drug that is known to cause persons to do mass violence. When will public officials wake up to the real danger - the psychotropic drugs that cause disruption of brain activity and thoughts of violence.

Mark Taylor Fight for Freedom

National Security Risk - Lack of Oversight of Psychiatric Medications

Mark Allen Taylor was not safe when he attended his high school in Columbine Colorado and kindergarten children were not safe in Newtown, Connecticut. We can no longer ignore the risks posed by psychiatric drugs, often used "off-label" and without proper regulatory control by the Food and Drug Administration or Health and Human Services. The public health and safety risk of the increasing use of psychiatric medications is extremely underestimated. As a nation, we ignored the real national security risk of poor mental health policy, a policy that underestimates the effects of psychiatric drugs, which may contribute to violence, such as the mass murders at Columbine, Newtown, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, Santa Barbara, the Washington Navy Yard, Fort Hood Texas and the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. In January 2011 US Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords was among the 19 people shot by a mentally ill man. The victims also included a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. But we didn't ask the question - what psychiatric drug was he taking at the time of the murders. Instead our public policy has been to use more psychiatric drugs, even in light of increasing evidence of their lack of efficacy for the prescribed use and the increasing evidence of violent behavior done by persons under their influence.

Mother Jones did a study of 62 mass shootings between 1982 and 2012 and found that 80% of the perpetrators got their weapon legally and 38 of the 62 cases displayed clear mental health symptoms prior to the killings. Acute paranoia, depression and delusions were common among the shooters. 36 of the shooters committed suicide on or near the scene of the mass murders. Seven others died in police shootouts they had little hope of surviving ("suicide by cop"). The number of mass murders has been steadily increasing and 33 of the mass murders have occurred since 2006, this correlates to the increasing and unbridled use of psychiatric medications.

According to research done by Dr. Ann Blake-Tracey Ph.D. there over 3,000 incidents of violence involving psychiatric medications including: 68 cases of bizarre behavior, 48 school shootings/incidents, 52 road rage tragedies, 12 air rage incidents, 44 postpartum depression cases, over 600 murders (homicides), over 180 murder-suicides and also numerous other acts of violence including workplace violence.

Pscyhaitric Drugs Causing Violence

The Columbine Killers

Food and Mark A. Taylor Testimony to Drug Administration on 9/13/2004

" I am Mark Allen Taylor and I am a victim of the SSRI antidepressant era. I took six to thirteen bullets in the heart area in the Columbine High School shooting when Eric Harris on Luvox opened fire that now infamous day.

They almost had to amputate my leg and my arm. My heart missed by only one millimeter. I had three surgeries. Five years later I am still recuperating.

I went through all this to realize that SSRI antidepressants are dangerous for those who take them and for all those who associate with those who take them. I hope that my testimony today shows you that you need to take action immediately before more innocent people like me, and you, do not get hurt or die horrible deaths as a result.

As Americans we should have the right to feel safe and if you were doing your job we would be safe. Why are we worrying about terrorists in other countries when the pharmaceutical companies have proven to be our biggest terrorists by releasing these drugs on an unsuspecting public? How are we suppose to feel safe at school, at home, on the street, at church or anywhere else if we cannot trust the FDA to do what we are paying you to do? Where were you when I and all of my classmates got shot at Columbine?

You say that antidepressants are effective. So why did they not help Eric Harris before he shot me? According to Eric they “helped” him to feel homicidal and suicidal after only six weeks on Zoloft. And then he said that dropping off Luvox cold turkey would help him “fuel the rage” he needed to shoot everyone. But he continued on Luvox and shot us all anyway.

So, why did these so called antidepressants not make him better? I will tell you why. It is because they do not work. We should consider antidepressants to be accomplices to murder."

On March 22, 2004 the FDA published a Public Health Advisory that reiterates several of these side effects and states (in part) “Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and non-psychiatric.”

On September 14, 2004 the FDA added a Black Box Warning in regard to antidepressants & suicidality in those under age 18.

On September 14, 2004 the FDA mandated that pharmacies provide to all parents or guardians for those younger than 18 an Antidepressant Patient Medication Guide. This guide reads (in part) “Call health care provider right away if you or your family member has any of the following symptoms: Acting aggressive, being angry, or violent & acting on dangerous impulses.” This Antidepressant Patient Medication Guide also states “Never stop an antidepressant medicine without first talking to a health care provider. Stopping an antidepressant medicine suddenly can cause other symptoms.”

On December 13, 2006, the FDA Black Box Warning for suicidality was updated to include those under age 25. The Black Box Warning is included in the insert to the drugs and in the Physicians’ Desk reference.

The FDA has warned that any abrupt change in dose whether starting on, increasing or decreasing or discontinuing the drug, skipping doses by forgetting, or when switching from one antidepressant to another where you are both abruptly decreasing one antidepressant AND abruptly increasing the new antidepressant can cause suicide, hostility or psychosis. Withdrawal, especially abrupt withdrawal, from any of these medications can cause severe neuropsychiatric as well as physical symptoms, both of which can be life threatening.

SSRIs are Dangerous

Federal Legislation Increased access to "off-label" drugs

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs saw a seismic increase in the late 1990s, thanks to the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 lifting restrictions on drug companies marketing to the public. With ads for psychiatric drugs on TV and other media, the public including many more parents were convinced that troublesome behavior could be a medical diagnosis treatable with a pill. This legislation also granted Big Pharma permission to promote its studies of “off-label” uses for drugs, leading doctors to engage in much more “off-label” prescribing of drugs for symptoms and conditions not approved by the FDA. This has led to administering a drug to troubled adults and children, as a first response, rather than behavioral therapy. It is easier to scribble off a prescription rather than attempt to unravel the complex issues of a difficult home environment or a deep rooted societal problem.

As a nation we are now medicating over 70 million Americans with mind altering medications and one out of every 5 adults take psychiatric drugs. The Government Accountability Organization (GAO) reported in 2011 that foster children receive psychiatric medications up to 13 times more often than kids in the general population. Hundreds of thousands of children in foster-care are prescribed anti-psychotics in higher doses and in combinations considered dangerous even for adult patients and these drugs are even given to infants.

While the National Institute of Mental Health reports schizophrenia affects only 1 percent of the population and bipolar disorder less than 3 percent of the population, anti psychotics have become one of the top-selling classes of medications in the United States, with 2010 prescription sales of $16.2 billion, according to IMS Health. Medicaid spends at least $6 billion a year, nearly 30 percent of its entire drug budget, on psychiatric drugs, more than double what was spent in 1999, according to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.

The FDA Modernization Act of 1997 codifies FDA's regulations and practice to increase patient access to experimental drugs and medical devices and to accelerate review of important new medications. In addition, the law provides for an expanded database on clinical trials which will be accessible by patients. The law abolishes the long-standing prohibition on dissemination by manufacturers of information about unapproved uses of drugs and medical devices. The act allows a firm to disseminate peer-reviewed journal articles about an off-label indication of its product, provided the company commits itself to file, within a specified time frame, a supplemental application based on appropriate research to establish the safety and effectiveness of the unapproved use. The act also allows drug companies to provide economic information about their products to formulary committees, managed care organizations, and similar large-scale buyers of health-care products. The provision is intended to provide such entities with dependable facts about the economic consequences of their procurement decisions. The law, however, does not permit the dissemination of economic information that could affect prescribing choices to individual medical practitioners.

The United States as a nation has clearly agreed that torture, cruel inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment or punishment is prohibited in U.S. Jurisdiction. The United States of America agreed with the CAT Committee that … “the intentional infliction of mental pain or suffering was appropriately included in the definition of torture to reflect the increasing and deplorable use by certain States of various psychological forms of torture and ill-treatment, such as mock executions, sensory deprivations, use of drugs, and confinement to mental hospitals.” However, for the vulnerable wards of the court within the U.S.A., there are few protections to prevent abuse and to allow transparency and accountability for the treatment of psychiatric patients. Wards of the court have surrogate decision makers for both legal and medical decisions. The U.S.A. mental health guardianship system offers few procedural protections, and has spawned a profit-driven professional guardianship industry that often enriches itself at the expense of society’s most vulnerable members—the mentally ill. Yet despite numerous calls for reform, most states have done little to monitor professional guardians and prevent abuse and neglect. Secrecy, lack of transparency and lack of accountability makes a perfect environment for human rights violations of the mentally disabled. Research can be disguised as “treatment,” but instead actually be a harmful or deadly experiment done without the patient’s knowledge or informed consent to treatment. The United States is under constraints in the government’s power to use individuals in non-consensual experimentation, including non-consensual medical treatment and experimentation. Control of pharmaceutical and device products is vested by statute in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within Health and Human Services (HHS). “Off-label” use or “extra-label” use is using a prescription drug for a purpose and in a manner not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Forcing wards of the court to take medications that are “off-label,” (also called “extra-label”) is tantamount to human experimentation on the vulnerable wards of the court. Such violations of human subject provisions are routine with many patients in locked state and federal institutions given psychiatric drugs for “off-label uses.” Problems of patient abuse occur including: excessive dosing for purposes of chemical restraint, poly-pharmacy with multiple medications, lack of informed consent and the use of medication with little or no direct doctor/patient contact. In addition the use of medication with no real oversight of the process of diagnosis, means that patients can often not question the use of these medications because surrogate decision makers have been assigned by the court to make all medical decisions. Wards in mental health care have often been stripped of their legal rights and thus cannot assert their objections to treatment decisions. Unbiased independent review of medical charts is almost non-existent. Deceptive and coercive marketing practices by the pharmaceutical industry are common place. The practice of marketing drugs for purposes not backed by science is called “off-label promotion.” These drugs do not live up to their marketing promises but instead have been known to cause serious, even fatal side-effects, particularly in children and the elderly. Lives of some our most vulnerable citizens have been irreparably damaged and many have been lost to fatal adverse effects and even to suicide.

Big Bucks, Big Pharma

Ann Blake Tracy - Dangers of Drugs

Traumatic Incidents & Deaths

See the following list of traumatic incidents and deaths associated with antidepressant use.

Why Big Pharma PROFITS from Keeping You Sick

Human Rights - Free, Prior & Informed Consent

The principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent is an important human right which has been addressed in many international and domestic laws and practices. The human rights of patients are also delineated in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. The standards of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture states that "consent to treatment can only be qualified as free and informed if it is based on full, accurate and comprehensible information about the patient's condition and the treatment proposed.” Consequently, all patients should be provided systematically with relevant information about their condition and the treatment which it is proposed to prescribe for them.” The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has stated: "Patients should, as a matter of principle, be placed in a position to give their free and informed consent to treatment. The admission of a person to a psychiatric establishment on an involuntary basis should not be construed as authorizing treatment without his consent. It follows that every competent patient, whether voluntary or involuntary, should be given the opportunity to refuse treatment or any other medical intervention. Any derogation from this fundamental principle should be based upon law and only relate to clearly and strictly defined exceptional circumstances."

Columbine - the road home

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

"Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself." Confucius

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at
the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who
at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so
that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore
Roosevelt- Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic",
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

Medical Whistleblower Commitment to Non-Violence

Medical Whistleblower has a commitment to improving the protection of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as defined in, among others, the following regional and international legal instruments:

• UN legal instruments pertaining to human rights, including: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the international covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights; the conventions providing for monitoring mechanisms (torture, racial discrimination, discrimination against women, the rights of the child, rights of migrant workers and their families); and the conventions and standards of the International Labor Organization;

• Special procedures and non-treaty mechanisms of the United Nations;

• The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders;

• The UN resolution establishing the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on human rights defenders;

• The United Nations guidelines on human rights defenders;

In addition, Medical Whistleblower upholds the principle of a code of ethical and moral conduct that all means used by Medical Whistleblower will not include violence - We exclude the use of violence to advance political aims. We work with and in collaboration with existing governmental structures and systems but put pressure on governments in a non-violent manner to achieve human rights protections and goals.

"The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience."

“When we call anything a person’s right, we mean that he has a
valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the
force of law, or by that of education and opinion”

John Stuart Mill

"The adversarial system of justice is by nature unfair and unjust. It favours the strongover the weak. It accentuates social and cultural differences, favouring the rich whoare able to engage and pay for the services of one or more layers."

Justice MinisterMadame Guigou, 1999

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―Martin Luther

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But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something
that I can do.”
― Edward Everett Hale

Film on Residential Child Abuse

Over the GW - Available on DVD

Make Torture of US Citizens on US Soil illegal

IF YOU NEED HELP

Vietnam
Veterans of America, Crisis Phone Number. Special
Notice: If you are a veteran in emotional crisis and need help RIGHT NOW, call
this toll-free number 1-800-273-8255 available 24/7, and tell them you are a
veteran. All calls are confidential. http://www.vva.org/.

Veterans’
Crisis Intervention Hotline: 1-888-899-9377.
A Crisis Intervention Hotline has been established by the VA Heartland Network
to assist veterans who may be dealing with a mental health crisis or difficult
issue in their lives. The hotline will also aid family members or friends of
veterans who need help in assisting a veteran in crisis.

Safe Harborincludes links to find medical doctors (by zip code) who can assist with helping people safely get off of psychiatric drugs and medical personnel who will treat people without the use of psychiatric drugs.